Hugs to you, RD.

I am also one who remembers my husband so much differently than he is now- and the confusion that goes with it. Looking back I see hints of less good qualities, but everyone has flaws, right? It's as though all the terrible parts of him grew and drowned out the better parts. It's so hard to say what has happened.
Most days I wonder if he was always a jerk and I compensated for him, or if something else is going on.

I'm curious when you first started seeing changes in your wife. For my husband, it was when DD first started showing signs of autonomy (around 3 yo, but that was 18 years into our marriage) but not off the rails til she finished elementary school. Don't know if that's coincidence to another illness, or something in him got triggered. (Childhood trauma?)

Codependency work helps. In some ways I feel like I'm falling in love with myself for the first time ever. It's sad at my age, but hey...

I often say I feel like a salt shaker who's incomplete without a pepper shaker. I want to be part of a pair, but then that makes me feel codependent in some ways. It's great to be part of a pair, but important to be okay as an individual unit.

Hurting for you. Good days and bad days... At least you have your kids.